Poetry in Motion: Lyricism through Communication in Domenico Capilongo’s send

Born when rotary telephones came in multiple colours, Domenico Capilongo began writing with pencil and paper, passing poetry notes from the back of the class. He still writes in notebooks, used a typewriter in high school, and his earliest published poems were printed on a dot-matrix printer. His latest poetry collection, send, explores the ways in which we communicate. From smoke signals to texting, and using lyric meditation, personal narratives and experimental poetry, send forces us to examine how we choose to relate to one another.As in his previous collections, Domenico Capilongo continues to play with lyricism, form and language. Many of the poems are experimental and include deletion poetry such as ‘twenty six of the most curious webster dictionary words’ (according to huffingtonpost.com) and ‘how to yodel’ (from wiki how). Other poems are completely unique in their format, including ‘(a message from my computer)’  which is written in binary code.*send*Along with being a writer, Domenico Capilongo also works as a high school teacher and references to modern pop culture are evident in his work. The book begins with a lyric by Arcade Fire from a song entitled “We Used to Wait” which Domenico states was an inspiration for the book. The song, much like send, focuses on how the speed of communication has changed, and not necessarily for the better. There is also a poem entitled ‘yolo’ which references Drake and Snapchat, familiar to the millennial generation. *middle age morse code payphone*Poems such as ‘swim class’ and ‘walkie talkie’, which are shown in the clip below, focus on parenthood and how we communicate with our children. Send asks us to consider how the way we communicate with each other affects our message and what we are really trying to say. * * *Thanks so much to Alex at Guernica Editions, for going behind the text bubbles and smoke signals of send with us. For more Poetry in Motion, click here.